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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29559147">the hunter's heart, the hunter's mouth</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roselightfairy/pseuds/Roselightfairy'>Roselightfairy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Finding a Voice: OCs and Extras [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Mirkwood, Nature, Outdoor Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:26:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,017</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29559147</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roselightfairy/pseuds/Roselightfairy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>This is the hungry season – the season when the days lengthen at last and the animals venture forth from terrorized hiding places to begin reclaiming their rightful home. The season when the evil things that haunt the wood lose the near-unchecked freedom of the long winter nights, when the elves can at last slacken their patrols and their wariness, when they dare again to venture forth and hunt, and sing, and feast – </i>
</p><p>  <i>The time of the Enemy is ended at last, but Legolas still knows this season in his blood. The sun is setting, the snow is melting, and he is alive and free – and hungry.</i></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gimli (Son of Glóin)/Legolas Greenleaf</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Finding a Voice: OCs and Extras [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2054061</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>99</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the hunter's heart, the hunter's mouth</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Basically just smut, so be warned.</p><p>Title from the following quote (and prompt for this fic): 'The hunter's heart, the hunter's mouth, the trees and the trees and the space between the trees, swimming in gold.' -Richard Siken, 'Snow and Dirty Rain.’ I’m sure you can see the influence, uh, everywhere.</p><p>This fic came together thanks to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unnamed_Element/pseuds/UnnamedElement">UnnamedElement</a> who gave me the prompt, did some generous beta-picking, and is generally an inspiration for the kind of lush writing I was hoping to do here – and to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeHeerKonijn/pseuds/DeHeerKonijn">DeHeerKonijn</a> for activating my smutbrain and talking to me about sex dynamics and good spring feelings for . . . a long time. Cheers to fandom flow. &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The sun is setting.</p><p>The sun is setting, and the snow is melting, icicles dripping to nothing from falsely brittle-seeming branches, only a few remaining snowdrifts scattered in patches off the paths. The rest is gone already, sunk into the forest floor and churned into rich, life-giving mud by the feet of the animals who have ventured forth from their own hiding places and passed this way before them. For they dare to pass freely now, now that winter has eased her grip of icy fear, now that the days lengthen and those cruelest of predators cannot hide themselves amidst the endless night.</p><p>The sun is setting, unrushed and languid, lingering sweetly on the horizon as though in apology for the long months of her absence; the flood of light is almost enough to dispel the chill of the air. The trees are a black lattice against the glow, unleaved branches laced like loving fingertips, and in between: gold, gold, gold.</p><p>It must be a beautiful sight to a dwarf’s eyes: the mithril shine of the snow, the crystals of ice still adorning the trees, the molten gold light. Must it not?</p><p>Legolas turns, letting the sun kiss his back, watching the light filter into shadow, and his breath catches in his chest.</p><p>What is a sunset? There has never been such a magnificent sight as <em>this</em>.</p><p>Gimli is glowing, radiant in the flood of sunlight, gold and copper mingling in the curls of his hair. He seems to be standing at the border of shadow, the sun touching him and then fading behind him – because even light itself falters against his glory. It is the end of winter in the Greenwood; only the cautious and the daring will yet venture out so close to sundown and yet here is Gimli, so proud and unbent against the very force of the season, defying the threat that has twisted so much of this forest into fear, strong and solid and so very, very alive.</p><p>Legolas’s tongue flicks out to lick his lips – but is his mouth dry or watering?</p><p>“Legolas?” says Gimli, and the sound of his voice scorches down through Legolas’s body like an all-consuming inferno, blood rushing in its wake.</p><p>So alive – so very alive. This is the hungry season – the season when the days lengthen at last and the animals venture forth from terrorized hiding places to begin reclaiming their rightful home. The season when the evil things that haunt the wood lose the near-unchecked freedom of the long winter nights, when the elves can at last slacken their patrols and their wariness, when they dare again to venture forth and hunt, and sing, and feast –</p><p>The time of the Enemy is ended at last, but Legolas still knows this season in his blood. The sun is setting, the snow is melting, and he is alive and free – and hungry.</p><p>“Love?” says Gimli, but at last Legolas’s eyes lock with his own and he falls quiet.  His eyes say what his words do not, following that searing path down Legolas’s body as his lips curl up in a smile of promise. The flush rises from beneath Legolas’s skin, collides with the chill air, and he has never felt so awake.</p><p>He takes a step forward, sinking nearly into a crouch as he would on a hunt – only now his prey mirrors his motion, meets his eyes as though demanding to be devoured – or promising to devour in turn.</p><p>Legolas does not know which he would prefer.</p><p>He takes another step.</p><p>They come together with the slow inevitability of teeth sinking into the flesh of a fruit – not a collision but a reunion, a perfect alignment. The kiss is a devouring; Gimli’s mouth opens under his and their breath mingles, tongues twining warm and slick, a serpentine mating dance. Legolas would swallow him whole if he could, bring him inside, deeper, deeper –</p><p>Gimli’s body tilts up into his and Legolas gathers him in, hands already full of his hips and buttocks to pull him up, higher, closer. The sounds of the forest are muted now, a distant discordance to the thumping drum of blood in Legolas’s ears, the suck and pull of Gimli’s mouth against his own. Gimli’s heartbeat pulses in the thumbs dragging rough calluses over Legolas’s cheeks, in the place where their chests crush Gimli’s beard close between their bodies.</p><p>Close, yes, but not close enough. Still that hunger twists at his insides, that burning in his lower belly and his groin, that blaze yearning to consume. The fabric of Gimli’s breeches is too thick; Legolas plucks at it in desperation, his Westron fled – “Please?” is the only word he can remember. Gimli’s hips surge forward in lieu of a nod and he sighs a “<em>kun,</em>” into Legolas’s mouth without breaking the kiss.</p><p>Fastenings, fastenings – what use are fastenings but as a barrier? Legolas does not bother with them but slides his hands directly beneath the waist of Gimli’s breeches. They both gasp as cold fingers find hot skin – tender but firm with muscle, the hair softer here than on his arms or legs, shielded from the world. Legolas’s fingers knead him like clay, like dough; he settles the cup of his hands where buttock meets thigh and hitches him up, rocks his own hips forward –</p><p>There. <em>There</em>, hot and hard and throbbing between them, a shock of sensation; a groan resonates between their mouths and Legolas does not know in whose throat it originated. He rocks forward again and now the sound is some strangled cross between a growl and a keen – like a wolf denied his kill – he clutches Gimli closer, kisses him harder, knows again that craving, that <em>hunger</em> –</p><p>It pulls at him, the compulsion, draws him back, draws him <em>down</em>. The whine that escapes Gimli when he breaks the kiss tugs at his heart, but he is helpless to resist. Without moving his hands, he sinks to his knees.</p><p>The wet mulch of the ground seeps immediately through his breeches – his knees and the whole length of his shins damp in seconds – but it is Gimli’s groan as Legolas’s cheek brushes against his groin that sends a shudder through his whole body. His fingers are stumbling around to the front now – fastenings, fastenings, why did he not simply undo them before? – Gimli’s moans are nearly constant now, rising and falling, gasping every time Legolas’s fumbling fingers brush his sensitive skin – and <em>there</em> at last – he tugs them down and – <em>yes, finally</em> – takes Gimli into his mouth.</p><p>Gimli cries out aloud when Legolas’s mouth closes around him, and an answering groan rises in Legolas’s chest, smothered behind flesh and saliva and salt. In his right mind, he would be shocked at himself – he has always been shy of this act before, taking only the tip, hesitant to dare anything bolder – but Gimli’s hands curl into his hair, one thumb tracing a tingling path to the tip of his ear, and the scent of him rises from the thatch of hair between his thighs, swirls into Legolas’s nose and overthrows his senses, and the season still sings its promise in his blood, and he inhales hard and takes Gimli in deeper.</p><p>The rhythm between them changes now, a new push and pull – <em>push </em>of Gimli’s hips into his mouth, <em>pull</em> of the hands in his hair as the hips retreat – Legolas can barely breathe, his mouth and nose full of Gimli, Gimli, Gimli; his belly burns and every groan wrung from Gimli above him ignites a new freezing spark – and still he wants more, more, deeper – hunger, yes, the hunger of the season as he has never felt it, and as Gimli’s pleasure builds and builds, so does Legolas’s certainty that only this will be enough to feed him.</p><p>And then – and then –</p><p>Gimli’s hands yank at his hair, hard enough to hurt – though that pain only drives him wilder: a wound sustained in the hunt only heightens the satisfaction of the feast. “Legolas,” Gimli gasps, his voice dry and cracked, “Legolas, I” –</p><p>The word chokes off into a wordless cry and he is coming in a hot flood, hips surging forward into Legolas’s mouth, and for the first time, Legolas does not pull away. He swallows instead, bitter and salty and musky though it is, holding Gimli’s hips steady as his legs wobble, waiting through the last pulses – and when he finally withdraws, trembling, letting Gimli slide soft and limp off his tongue, he feels as though some desperate need within him has been satisfied.</p><p>For a moment, all is quiet. Legolas leans his cheek against Gimli’s thigh: warm skin and pricks of hair and the crumpled-creased fabric of his breeches. Keeps his grip firm on Gimli’s hips as much to steady himself as to keep Gimli upright. Lets the cool evening air soothe his overheated skin. Waits for his breath to even out.</p><p>“Ah,” he sighs at last, his voice trembling. His knees shake, and he doubts he will be able to rise to his feet on his own.</p><p>“I could say it no better myself.” The muscles of Gimli’s thighs and buttocks quiver, presumably with the effort to remain standing; his hands on Legolas’s head are gentle but not without weight. “I did not – whence came <em>that?</em>”</p><p>Legolas can only shake his head, too occupied with breathing to speak. The scent of the forest air – soil and remnants of snow and oncoming spring – feels fresher and cooler even than before, but still he can smell the flesh-sweat-musk of Gimli where his head rests between his legs, can taste him on his tongue. He works his jaw carefully, testing sore muscles, and Gimli laughs.</p><p>“Well,” he says softly. “It was certainly impressive.” He cradles Legolas’s jaw gently in one broad hand and swipes the pad of the thumb under his lower lip. Legolas’s eyes fall closed at the single stroke, opening again just in time to watch Gimli raise his hand to his mouth. “Shall I?”</p><p>The sight of Gimli’s lips closing over his own thumb, his eyes sparkling with promise, sends a faint pulse of heat between Legolas’s legs – more a reminder than anything else, for that desperate hunger is fading already, his own desire as good as satisfied. “No,” he sighs, “no, I can wait.” Or perhaps he will not wait at all; all he truly wants now is to curl up at Gimli’s side in bed, feel the dwarf’s fingers twining through his hair. “That was all I needed.”</p><p>“You are certain?” The mischief in Gimli’s eyes melts into sweetness and he cups Legolas’s cheek again, lets his thumb skim back over his lip. Legolas tilts his head into the touch and the desire ebbs further. Spring is not here yet, after all.  It is still the time for safety, to hold one another close as the night deepens around them.</p><p>“I am,” he murmurs. “Anyway” – he glances up at last at the fading light he has nearly forgotten, the falling shadows. The sun has fled while they tarried – “we ought to return. It is still not safe to be out alone so late.”</p><p>Gimli studies him for a moment longer, then leans down to kiss him, slow and sweet – not the scorching heat of arousal but the slow-building warmth of shared body heat, the comfort of a nest of blankets. When they part at last, only the reminder that that nest awaits them in his chambers is enough to keep Legolas from melting onto the forest floor.</p><p>He hauls himself to his feet instead, leaning on Gimli’s shoulder for support and then stabilizing Gimli in turn while he adjusts and re-fastens his breeches. Legolas’s own are mud-stained from the knees down; anyone who sees them will guess what they have been doing – but Legolas finds he does not care. After all, soon it will be spring.</p><p>And they make their way back along the path towards the halls as behind them the sun sinks fully below the horizon and day gives way at last into night.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"kun" = yes (I believe), according to the Dwarrow Scholar. (Hunting down Khuzdul translations is so hard!)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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